This is the way the year ends, not with a star, but a starless night...

Dad-burn it! In keeping with Big Screen's promise to bring you, the reader, more interviews with beautiful young actresses in 2013, we were all set to chat with Alexandra Daddario, star of Texas Chainsaw 3D - coming Friday to a …

In a jaw-dropping display of good taste on the part of our readers, The Big Screen scored 4, count 'em 4, spots on The Reader's list of the top 12 most popular blog entries of the last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwpD3USKEKw With …

"Purkey" character actor appeared in several Billy Wilder films

Cliff Osmond, television screenwriter, acting teacher, and productive character actor, died on Saturday at his home in Pacific Palisades. He was 75. Osmond's TV credits read like a checklist of virtually every major (and some minor) series throughout the '60's …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/28/37585/ I'm a wholesome goodhearted guy with people's best interests at heart! http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/28/37586/ No, I'm a wholesome goodhearted guy with people's best interests at heart! Scott wasn't too exceedingly thrilled with the frakudrama Promised Land. But I will quibble with …

On this final Friday of 2012, a brief bout of movie-related self-promotion

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/28/37574/ I am very fond of Anne Helen Petersen's Scandals of Classic Hollywood over at The Hairpin. A while back, I was reading her piece on Gloria Swanson, and learned what I really should have known already: that there was …

When you're done telling me what movie is referenced in the title, why not try your hand at these ten (or so) studio logos unique to the films they represent? You've done it before. Well, at least a few of …

Welcome, welcome to The Title or Trailer Gave IV. Here I am with another chance for one of our couples to win absolutely nothing. The rules are simple: if you don't know, flip a coin. Those who refrain from nodding …

Big Screen wants your ideas for films that could never be made

You all know about The Black List, Hollywood's declaration of love for various scripts that have not been made...yet. We here at Big Screen (definite articles are so pre-Mayan apocalypse) are starting up a list of our own - a …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/27/37487/ It's been my good fortune to have made it through only one of the Muppets numerous big screen outings. I could be wrong, but don't they usually contain a scene set inside a movie theatre? Remember how Quentin Tarantino's …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/27/37484/ Brace yourself: Les Misérables took in a weekday Christmas record of $18.2 million in the United States and Canada when it opened on Tuesday. People must not have heard that a new Billy Crystal film debuted the same day. …

A couple of genius moments from one of my very favorite films, here and here. Thank you, Pappy O'Daniel.

Would characters actors please refrain from dying long enough for me to unwrap my Christmas presents? First Jack Klugman and now Charles Durning. Charles Durning, the man who played Santa Claus five times (It Nearly Wasn't Christmas, Mrs. Santa Claus, …

Jack Klugman played the slob long before his role as TV's Oscar Madison made it fashionable. An image of cardinal significance from the Jewish guilty pleasure, Goodbye, Columbus (1969), instantly made me a Klugman convert. Ben Patimkin (Klugman) is seated …

She was a full-grown Calico who couldn't have weighed more that 4 or 5 lbs. Aria was adorable, shy, but not so timid that she'd hide the second company came over. She became mine when her owners realized they could …

Plus what killed the Gaslamp's peep show empires, and why they deserved to die

Modern day porn movies are notorious for their ridiculous and idiotic titles. Looking at a porn star's list of film names would have been funny to me a few years ago. Now, it's just sad and disturbing to realize that …

Critic finds lump of coal in stocking

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/24/37352/ Look what they're writing to the editor, and at Christmas no less. I almost passed on the Hitchcock movie after reading the Scott Marks' review. What a mistake that would have been. It was a way- above-average movie, as …

New documentary reminds that the tiny songwriter was a gigantic music AND movie star.

If you were around in the 1970s, and even if you weren't, you probably know Paul Williams. He wrote classic songs like “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Evergreen" and “The Rainbow Connection" and acted on countless TV shows (as well as …

Cirque du Soleil? More like Cirque du SoGAY, amirite, fellas?*

So this came in the mail: http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/21/37277/ So now I feel obliged to remind y'all that Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away opens tonight! I won't be there, though. I'll be showing up in your nightmares, wearing this very special mask! …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/21/37271/ This shot shows up in a Vince Vaughn bro-comedy, there are protests about demeaning gay stereotypes. It shows up in an Almodovar movie, it's hilarious. Discuss. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nb3ZygFz-M

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/21/37268/ I dunno. I was just tickled by the juxtaposition of old (Mel Gibson) and new (Tom Hardy). And forget a new Lethal Weapon installment - this should be the franchise that brings back Mad Mel.

Is it wrong to lie to a child by telling them that once a year a sleigh led by 8 reindeer deposits a red-draped fatso bearing a sack of toys on your roof? Don't ask me. Who even knew from …

The new mid-life movie This is 40 isn't just Judd Apatow getting to fantasize that he's Paul Rudd by casting him opposite Mrs. Judd Apatow, aka Leslie Mann. It's also a chance for him to introduce the world to Megan …

Mr. Marks, having doled out the first batch of Christmas goodies, will no doubt be along again soon with an account of his time spent at Parental Guidance. Probably right after the bandages come off his eyes. In the meantime, …

When in Hollywood, as was the case during the recent Thanksgiving holiday, I feel it my duty to take in at least one 35mm revival. Since it was a holiday weekend, I didn't expect to find much in the way …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/20/37238/ I'm scared. If those zany Mayans are right and the world does come to an end tomorrow, that means the last movie I'll ever see will be Parental Guidance. Or maybe by "the end of the world," the Mayans …

Mr. Marks is just grumpy about Punch Drunks being the only Three Stooges joint in the National Film Registry. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMnmyHVDRFY Otherwise, he would not have failed to post the gem of this year's additions to the Registry: Kodachrome Motion Picture …

A Penny Marshall for your thoughts

Not only has 2012 meant a bad time at the movies, it appears as if the national Film Registry has taken the year off. If Holly Golightly's waiter was as slow on the uptake as these cats are at the …

Well, as long as Mr. Marks is taking note of Big George's man-love, and as long as I'm accusing Big Pete of going Full Lucas, I suppose it's worth noting that, were it not for a brief appearance from Galadriel, …

Not that I have ever spent time contemplating George Lucas's on-screen treatment of women, but now that you mention it, Marty and John Woo are Jane Campion by comparison. Hell, the Three Stooges offered dames more diversity (and screen time). …

Judge gives Florida man 10-year sentence for breaking into email accounts and spying on people. "That's the government's job," declares Judge.

Two of the celebrities involved in the hacking scandal issued statements. Christina Aguilera said: http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/18/37149/ While Scarlett Johanssen added: http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/18/37150/ Another victim, Esquire magazine's Sexiest Woman Alive for 2012 Mila Kunis, has yet to make any public comment on the …

The closest I ever got to a golf course was Paramount's The Caddy. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/18/37141/ I don't know a PGA from an X-BOX 360 EIEIO, so it's best that we let the press release (and MACSD's Mike Newton) do most of …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/18/37133/ She's the shikse dream, the kind of farblunget nafke most 13-year-old Jewish boys doven for, yet Lindsay Lohan refuses to do Bar Mitzvahs. Why? The gig couldn't possibly be any more embarrassing than Liz and Dick. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ji-cT58rgNc TMZ reports …

I mean, he's been a Muppet for years! http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/17/37064/

"To fight monsters, we created monsters." Gosh, given the torture flap, it seems like this ought to be slapped onto Zero Dark Thirty.

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/17/37062/ "Wait, guys, I dropped a giant contact lens. I think it was right around here."

Vulture notes that Scott Marks' favorite eyebrow model is planning on making a Clinton documentary for some reason. President Clinton was larger than life. He doesn't deserve a documentary; he deserves fiction. And not some namby-pamby piece-on-the-side stuff like Primary …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diP-o_JxysA Nice work, Mr. Trailer Editor: "You're gonna get yourself and everyone under your command killed" gets spoken right over a shot of Mr. Doomed Redshirt running scared: http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/17/37043/ And it's not in the trailer, but what about this line …

The piano was blue, the profits were gray

A piano used in the iconic film Casablanca didn't fetch the anticipated $1.2 million when it went up for auction at Sotheby's on Friday. The piano was put on the block by a Japanese collector no doubt eager to cash …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/16/37012/ For a buck-and-a-quarter apiece, all four of them could be mine. The Airport Terminal Pack (watching them on a computer screen could leave you terminal at your terminal) hit the bottom of my Big!Lots shopping cart in less time …

Dept. of No, Not Really

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/14/36982/ "It says here that Jackson is taking over from Spielberg." "Out of the frying pan and into the fire." "To be precise: after the Hobbit gets panned, he should be fired." Peter Jackson, the celebrated director of such films …

Surprise! Smaug is not the most noteworthy dragon in theaters today!

The Hobbit is out. I saw it twice - once in High Frame Rate 3D and once in regular 3D. The first made everything look awful - the people looked like weird ordinary folk in heavy makeup instead of characters, …

So Anne Hathaway got out of a car at a premiere for Les Miserables, and the paparazzi managed to get photographic evidence of her decision to forgo undergarments that evening. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/13/36938/ She's taken the resultant brouhaha in stride, even surviving …

Out with the Spielberg, in with the DreamWorks at Reading Cinemas Grossmont Center 10

It was a day like any other. I wanted to go to the movies. Go ahead and snicker. You don't want to be around me on the rare occasion where I have to go a week without seeing something projected …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w6Vv2z-QiAI Well BRAAAAHM my BRAAAAHM, it's another movie about punching robots. I kind of hope it opens with a 2001-style bit that traces the development of human warfare, from cavemen punching each other, to one picking up a bone and …

Hollywood Foreign Press announce this year's-z-z-z-z-z-z

Best Picture Drama? Isn't Django Unchained a comedy? Thanks to the knuckleheads at the Hollywood Foreign Press, the recruitment film Act of Valor will forever be referred to as "an award-nominated film." Those are just two of the head-scratching curiosities …

"I've been watching you, Jack," intones Morgan Freeman in his best Morpheus voice. "You're curious. What are you looking for in those books?" http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/12/36892/ So what exactly is that book that our hero finds himself reading? Why, it's Thomas Babbington …

Whoa. http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/12/36887/ And what side is that, Dad? http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/12/36888/ Ah. The flaming side. But Dad also tells his boy, "You just have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be, Clark." Apparently, he thinks it's …

Chalk another one up to Hollywood Synchronicity - you know, the force that brought us Deep Impact and Armageddon, Dante's Peak and Volcano, etc. Cuz here come two films starring weirdly ageless A-listers (Tom Cruise and Will Smith) about space …

Look, I know that it's hardly news that Sylvester Stallone started his cinematic career in the X-rated Party at Kitty & Stud's (later renamed The Italian Stallion for obvious reasons). http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/12/36861/ But I did think it interesting that the film …

Last night I gave my friend's son a guided tour of the 3 Stooges short, Three Loan Wolves. Dad walked in the second this enchantingly incorrect image hit the screen: http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/12/36860/ "That should be your Facebook profile photo," my pal …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/10/36726/ It's a bleak holiday movie season at the commercial multiplexes, but there is always something worth your time playing at a Landmark or Reading Cinema near you. Just yesterday I visited the Gaslamp and picked up Dragon, a terrific …

Walter Hill's back and Stallone's got him!

It's been almost 20 years since Walter Hill (48HRS., Streets of Fire, Southern Comfort) has rewarded us with anything to look at. My head began spinning the second I saw his name attached to the trailer for Stallone's latest action …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/07/36604/ With the onslaught of a particularly weak season of Christmas films, you might want to check out a few of the more obsure finds playing our local art screens. Matt was impressed by the "intimate but not sentimental, revealing …

Okay, first off: Benedict Cumberbatch is hugely enjoyable as Sherlock Holmes in Sherlock, and I liked him just fine in the remake of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but I'm just not buying the menace here. There's something hollow in the …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/06/36564/ Who is this Wire Service and why is s/he getting all the plum film reviewing jobs? It's not for certain, but chances are Dan Bennett's reviews will be replaced by those off the wire. Dan left the North County …

Philip Seymour Hoffman must infiltrate a gang of high-end mall Santas who are planning to steal a diamond collection currently displayed at a jewelry store in the Beverly Center Mall in Beverly Hills. Take it from there, Hollywood. Here's some …

The Museum of Photographic Arts (1649 El Prado) features David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986, 120 min.) tomorrow night, December 6, at 7 p.m. The film is part of the Museum's Strange Cinema series, which "delves into the creative process and …

Can't help myself; this seems to be sort of a rich vein. Lessee, you could go bro and match up Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill again: http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/06/36554/ (I have to hand it to Tatum: Magic Mike proved that he's capable …

Hoooooooo boy. Johnny Depp is gonna make a Don Quixote movie, and it's gonna be a "modern re-imagining" of the story (which story, by the by, is about a guy who pretty much detests all things modern). It's true that …

The Beatles 1967 home movie remastered and documented for PBS documentary

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/05/36531/ Waaaaay back in the 1980s, when I got my first home VCR (a technological marvel that seemed like the height of space age tech at the time), the first two tapes I rented at the nearby Wherehouse on University …

Korean blockbuster plays Arc Light one night only

Pacific Arts Movement closes out the year tomorrow night with a screening of the biggest money maker in the history of Korean cinema. Pac-Arts has selected The Thieves for their final quarterly screening of 2012. The crime thriller directed by …

http://sandiegoreader.com/users/photos/2012/dec/05/36492/ Leave it to me to quote a mass murderer’s meditations on the true architect of rock 'n' roll, but I recall an interview with Richard Speck where the killer of 7 student nurses said, "If Little Richard was white …

Technical difficulties here at The Big Screen. But to help pass the time, why not watch The Ring? I was chatting with my co-blogger Scott the other night about scary movies, or rather, movies that scared us, and I confessed …

Only 3 days left to see it at Reading Cinemas Gaslamp 15

Forgive me from coming so late to the dance. I was in Burbank for a couple of weeks and didn't get a chance to see I Do Bidoo Bidoo until the day before it opened in San Diego. Movie musicals …

Starlet tells the story of an unlikely relationship that develops between two women - a young aspiring actress and a reclusive widow - living in the San Fernando Valley. It opens Friday, December 7, at the Ken Cinema. On Saturday, …

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q573_hDhTbE Oh, hilarious. New York Magazine film critic David Edelstein put Pitch Perfect on his Top Ten list for 2012. I really did think I was the only one who was charmed despite myself by this. I have no use …

My pal Scott was not impressed with Academy Award Winner Sir Anthony Hopkins' performance as Alfred Hitchcock in Hitchcock. He charges the actor with having "an oscillating accent," and with being unconvincing in general. I'd argue that the one leads …

First a shout out to RZA, now Brad Pitt

First came Quentin Tarantino's shout out to "my boy" RZA at the head of the Django Unchained trailer that played theatrically before The Man With the Iron Fists. Those fortunate enough to have seen Killing Them Softly this weekend, (Matthew …